Phone offer for babies

Press, 13 June 1984, Page 14

Phone offer for babies

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Moscow authorities are offering couples a telephone if they have more than two children, the Government newspaper. “Izvestia,” has reported. It said this was one of several incentive schemes aimed at reversing a steady decline in birth rates which threatened to have a big economic impact. The city council in Mos-

cow already allows families who have a third child to get privileged treatment from social services and go to the front of the long queue for private telephones. “Izvestia” said that about two-thirds of all families in cities such as Leningrad had only one child or none at all. It told readers that the econoi effects of the

slump in birth rates over the last few years meant that the Soviet work force would decline one million from 1986 to 1991. Industry and farming already suffer from a serious labour shortage. The newspaper called for a range of imaginative incentives to encourage all young married couples to have at least two children.